“I’m not one to go out and publicize,” she said, “but, you know, you kind of have to.”

Roper, 50, has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the white blood cells. She needs a
bone-marrow transplant.So the hunt is on for a donor.

A network of family members and friends has used everything from social media to collegiate
lacrosse connections to persuade people to register as potential marrow donors. More than 650 have
done so in less than a month.Even if no match turns up for Roper, the hundreds of new registrations
could save other lives.

“If we can help someone else, that’s going to be our goal, too,” said Roper, of the Worthington
Hills neighborhood — “so other people don’t have to go through what we’re going through.”

Roper, a nurse, learned in 2009 that a routine mammogram had detected something suspicious under
her arm. It turned out to be lymphoma.

She underwent radiation treatments, but the cancer returned. Next came five months of
chemotherapy; still, the cancer returned. In mid-September, she found a lump in her neck — a sign
that the lymphoma had taken a more aggressive form.

Her best hope, according to doctors, is chemotherapy followed by a bone-marrow transplant. Yet,
because she has no siblings (who sometimes make suitable donors), she has to look elsewhere.

Her son Drew, a senior lacrosse player at Penn State University, started a donor sign-up
campaign that spread throughout the team’s league, the Colonial Athletic Association.

Another son — Matt, a junior at Ohio State University — has sign-ups planned for 10 a.m. to 4
p.m. Friday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday at the Ohio Union and the Recreation
& Physical Activity Center.

The Ropers joined friends at the Columbus Marathon with signs and registration forms.And a
banner at the Perry Township offices on Sawmill Road advertises the need.

The intensity of the effort is unusual, said Marshall Brown, a central Ohio account executive
with Be the Match, the national marrow-donor organization.

“I can’t say it’s unprecedented,” he said, “but we’ve not seen something like this in central
Ohio.”

The national registry has 10 million potential donors. About 10,000 patients, Brown said, need
marrow transplants.

To join the registry, a potential donor swabs the inside of a cheek and sends the sample to the
National Marrow Donor Program — done with an ordered kit or at a sign-up drive. (For more
information, visit www.marrow.org.)The procedure is free for people 18 to 44, who represent about
90 percent of donors.

Being so public about an illness didn’t come naturally, Roper said.

“It is hard,” she said. “You feel like you’re putting your emotions and everything out there for
people to see.”

The most difficult and most heartening aspects of her ordeal have been the effects on her loved
ones: She knows that her cancer burdens them.At the same time, she has been deeply moved by the
efforts in her behalf.